


Are You What You Are

by shakespeareishq



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic pep talks, Closeted Character, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3585240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareishq/pseuds/shakespeareishq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Cole is deeply in the closet and struggles with his sexuality, Dean is patient and understanding, and Castiel provides what wisdom he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You What You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for some internalized homophobia towards Cole himself, but not necessarily towards others, and a mention that he tried conversion therapy. 
> 
> Cole's wife and son are currently unnamed so I kept them that way, even though it sounds a tad weird in some places, and Cole's age isn't given, so I estimated him to be 26 to Dean's 36.

Cole had been attracted to guys growing up, but he’d also lived in a pretty small, pretty intensely conservative christian town, so all he’d known his whole life was that he was broken. Sinful for thinking these evil thoughts and doomed to hell. He’d prayed, struggled, gone so far as to try conversion therapy, and while it didn’t exactly  _work_  the way he’d hoped it would (nothing did), he manages to clamp down on his urges for the better part of many years, even getting married. 

And his wife is a sweet girl, he can say without lying that he mostly loves her. He’d managed to have enough unpleasant sex to have a kid, and then after their son was born she wasn’t interested, and he never tells her how much of a relief that is. And his son is the whole world to him, he doesn’t need to fake that. 

But he’s not happy. He wonders if losing his father had anything to do with it. 

Then Dean happens.

That’s really the only word for it. Dean Winchester is a force of nature and he brings along knowledge of horrible things in his wake, demons and monsters and every awful thing that kept Cole from sleep as a child. 

But worst of all Dean has green eyes and soft lips and strong arms and Cole  _wants him_.

Dean saves his life in that cabin. Saves it again, if indeed his father would have turned on his own family like Dean says. Cole has to believe that he would’ve or else he’ll probably have a breakdown. There has to be something so wrong with him, to want the man who ruined his life, even if it was for some kind of greater good. He tries to think about his wife, which doesn’t help, and his son, which does.

And they’d warned him, the Winchesters, if he loved his family, to stay out of the life. But he reads the news as much as anyone these days, and he starts noticing the strange deaths, the mysterious accidents that no one can explain, and he can’t help himself. He says he’s going to check on Jemma, or some of his other military buddies. His excuses are accepted without comment and then he finds himself in bumfuck, nowhere lying to police about being a friend of the victim, or using his service background to get him in doors otherwise barred. He reads a lot, these days. How to salt and burn a corpse to stop a ghost, torch a wendigo, exorcise a demon. He’d taken spanish in high school, so he pulls up latin videos on youtube. He makes a fake I.D., stocks up on rock salt. 

Without Sam and Dean it’s slow going. He does meet this funny little guy, Garth, who lends him a lot of books and things that he can’t find in a regular library, and then it goes easier. The country’s big enough that, for a while at least, he doesn’t see hide nor hair of the Winchesters, and that’s perfectly alright with him. 

He misses his son’s birthday killing a vampire up in Montana, and he feels guilty enough to stay home for four months. 

But then there’s another case. There’s always another case, and this time Sam and Dean are there, now glad for his help having heard from Garth about what he’s done on his own. He doesn’t try very hard to save people anymore. This job, it sucks some of the goodness out of you, and Cole’s only been at it for about a year. Sam and Dean grew up in this, were raised in it. He wonders how much humanity they have left. He wonders if he cares. 

At night he dreams about green eyes and in the morning he hates himself. 

And eventually the monster is dead and the day is saved and Cole is very drunk from the endorphins and the celebratory beer and kissing Dean doesn’t seem like such a big deal, in the moment that he does it. Not until Dean pulls back and says “woah dude, aren’t you married?”

Cole sobers up real quick.   
  
“Fuck Dean, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Hey don’t apologize to me man, unless I mean you have an open relationship which, hey, that’s cool with me. If your wife is ok with you having casual sex then by all means we can go for it, I just, you know, want to make sure you aren’t gonna regret this in the morning.” 

“No! That’s not. I mean we don’t have that, I didn’t even know that was, what I mean is that it was wrong of me and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…want you like that.” 

And Dean stares at him for a second before it clicks and he begins to grasp the problem. “Cole? Are you saying what I think you’re trying to say? You aren’t talking about how it’s wrong to cheat are you.” Cole shakes his head, though really he is apologizing for that too. “You’re apologizing cause you just kissed a guy, aren’t you?” Cole nods, miserable. 

He didn’t mean for this to get out, for anyone to know. He’d driven four cities over to see that therapist who didn’t work so no one in his hometown would find out about it. And now he’s gone and fucked it up and he’s known he was going to hell but he doesn’t want to drag anyone down with him. But Dean was a  _demon_  the first time they officially met, maybe with him it would, somehow be ok? Cole’s not going to let himself think like that. But had said he wouldn’t mind, as long as Cole’s wife didn’t. He’d even kissed back like he was into it, and it had been brief but  _good_. 

No, Cole needs to get out, clear his head. Get away from Dean Winchester, at the very least, but Dean puts a hand on his arm when he tries to back up.

“Hey, relax. It’s ok. I mean, if you’re gay, or bi or whatever. I’m bi, and I know Sam’s at least fooled around some so we aren’t going to judge.” Cole doesn’t look or feel convinced. “You do know that it’s ok right? I mean,” Dean laughs a little, “like you weren’t in one of those uber religious hellfire families were you?”

Cole gets kind of defensive at that. “My religion is none of your business. And I mean it’s all true right? Demons are real, I’ve seen them, hell, you were one. When you exorcise them they go to the pit. So excuse me if I don’t wanna go there myself. I was drunk and it won’t happen again.”

Dean is pulling him into a hug before Cole quite registers what's happened. 

“Dammit kid, who screwed you up. Besides me. You know what don’t answer that. Look, believe what you want, I don’t mean to take that away from you, but here’s the thing,” Dean lets go, and Cole wishes he hadn’t. “I’ve been to hell. Literally have been there. I made a deal with a demon and, it’s a long story, but I can tell you that being into dudes? Is  _not_ what sends you downstairs. Trust me. You have to do bad shit to go to hell, like really bad.”

“Like trying to kill you and your brother bad?” Cole asks darkly. 

“Nah. I mean that wasn’t  _great_ , but you didn’t have all the facts. You thought you were doing what you needed to do, and we’ve had people who knew a lot better than you try to kill us too, and we forgave them. We forgave you too, or else, frankly, you wouldn’t be alive right now.” Cole raises his eyebrows at that and Dean just shrugs. “It’s just how it is. I’m not going to apologize, and you shouldn’t either. Look, do you want proof? Cause I’ve got the king of hell on speed dial. He can tell you himself that loving or wanting someone isn’t gonna mark you for damnation.”

Cole’s eyes get wide. “You know the devil?” 

Dean laughs at that. “Haa oh man, I do know the devil, but that’s not who I’m talking about. After the apocalypse there was kind of a management change and now this guy Crowley runs things. He’s an asshole, but sometimes he’s helpful. Emphasis on sometimes.”

All Cole got out of that was, “ _after_  the apocalypse?” 

“Yeah, it was back, five or so years ago now? Me ‘n Sam stopped it, Sam went to hell too, different from when I went but it was still bad. He didn’t have a soul when he came back and, you know it’s probably good that I wasn’t a demon back then or things could’ve gotten nasty. But if you want that whole story I’ll tell it some other time. Do you want me to call Crowley or?”

“You know what I think I’ll skip bothering the  _king of hell_  if he’s busy or something.” 

This makes Dean laugh harder. “God I’m sorry, just the thought of Crowley being remotely intimidating is kind of funny, you’ll get what I mean if you ever meet him. But ok. Let’s see, oh! I’ve got an angel buddy who’s probably not busy. You wanna talk to him?”

After the revelation that Dean is buddies with the king of hell, him knowing an angel shouldn’t be more shocking, but somehow it is. “So you know the devil and the king of hell and angels too? Lemme guess, you play poker with God on Thursdays.” 

“Actually, well about god…maybe you should talk to Cas about that—Castiel, he’s the angel—cause I can give you the truth right now but I don’t think you’re going to like it very much.”  
  
Cole nods slowly. “Ok, then I guess I’ll talk to the angel.” 

Dean does a curious thing next. He goes over to one of the empty motel beds, Sam having left with some girl while they were all still at the bar, and sits down. Then, he sort of bows his head a little and clasps his hands, like he’s intending to pray, but the words that come out of his mouth are unlike any prayer Cole has ever heard. 

“We pray to Castiel to get his feathery butt over to Minnesota and talk to my boy here cause I think he could use it, and you like helping people and stuff sometimes. The End.” 

Cole watches him, half leaning on the dresser, and that cannot possibly be the real way to summon an angel, Dean is fucking with him, trying to cheer him up or something. It’s not particularly funny, but then  _what the hell_ , there’s a guy standing there where before there had not been a guy. This is apparently Castiel, judging by the smile on Dean’s face.

He looks a little…frumpy, for an angel. Like Cole should hire him to do his taxes. 

“Dean, you called. Is it the mark again, or—”

“No no, it’s not that. I’m still remission-ing. I’ve just got a friend here, this is Cole, and he’s having kind of a, I guess a crisis of faith? I wondered if maybe you could help him out a little bit, tell him what’s what. I figured he’d be more likely to accept it coming from you than from me. He’s a good kid you know? But he thinks he’s going to hell and that’s just not true.” 

Castiel tilts his head and looks through Cole more than at him. 

“Have you committed the murder or rape of an innocent?” 

Cole shakes his head. Anyone he’d killed in combat had been trying very hard to kill him back, so he doesn’t think that counts. And he’d definitely never done the other thing.

“Have you stolen from the poor? Abused a child? Engaged in witchcraft with the aid of a demonic power? Committed evil without remorse?”

No he had never done any of that, and tells Castiel as much.

“Did you sell your soul?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then I don’t see why you would be marked for hell, I mean there are records in heaven, I could go check them if you’d like, or, did you ask Crowley? He would keep up with it more than I would.” 

Dean pitches in, “I offered, but we thought it might be easier to talk to you.” 

“I don’t understand why you would think you were going to hell.”

“Well I’m,” Cole takes a breath because he realizes this is the first time he’s ever said the words out loud, “I’m gay. I was always taught that was a eternally punishable offense, so when me and Dean,” he blushes and doesn't finish that sentence. Maybe he shouldn’t talk about sex or kissing to an angel, “um, Dean said it was ok but I guess I just didn’t believe him, so he said you would know.”

The angel Castiel lets out a soft breath. “Sometimes I have to try very hard to remind myself that humans are generally trying to do the right thing.” Looking back at Cole, he says deliberately, “Love is the greatest force of good in all of creation. I’ve seen it save the world more than once. Who we choose to love isn’t important, only that we do. This is the only insight I can give you, I’m afraid, but the body the person inhabits, that comes secondary to the soul. I would like to say heaven is perfect—” Dean snorts at this, and Castiel shrugs in agreement of whatever Dean is implying, the gesture seeming very human, “—in pairing bodies with souls, but mistakes get made. People are born into the wrong bodies, soulmates sometimes get placed a thousand miles apart. It took…a very concentrated effort for Sam and Dean to be born as brothers, for instance.”

“Yeah you whammied our parents.”

Castiel ignores but doesn’t deny the outburst. “The best thing humans can do for one another is to love, whether that love be romantic, platonic, or familial. Desire and attraction sometimes factor into it, but it’s not necessary. Nor is it wrong, assuming all parties involved consent to what they want, do you understand?” 

Cole thinks that, yes, he does. It feels like all of a sudden years of shame and guilt are lifting off his shoulders, and he has to sit down on the bed next to Dean because he isn’t sure his knees are going to work properly in a minute. Dean’s arm goes around him and he kisses Cole’s temple, and Cole lets himself relax into it because he’s allowed. He’s allowed to want Dean, and Dean wants him back, and he kind of understands now that old Christmas cartoon about the grinch whose heart grew three sizes, because he thinks his is about to burst. He’s dizzy with it. 

“You’ve been told some bad things by good people, and that they meant well doesn’t make it acceptable, but I advise you to give yourself some time to heal. You are broken now because of who you were forced to become, not because of who you are, remember that. You can mend.” 

Cole nods and doesn’t speak, because he thinks he might be about to cry. ‘Boys don’t cry,’ his father had said to him once, a lifetime ago. That had echoed through his head at the funeral, ‘boys don’t cry,’ so he hadn’t. But boys weren’t supposed to like boys either, according to his father, and here was an angel from heaven telling him that he wasn’t born wrong, that he’s ok. The tears that want to fall are happy and relieved, so maybe those are ok too. He must sniffle a little bit because Dean squeezes him tighter. Dean’s so warm, and Cole sort of wants to curl into him and never leave.

But he thinks about his boy, and the pretty girl he almost loves, his family. He knows this will hurt them, maybe even in a way that he can’t fix. He knows that, but somehow deep down he knows that never telling them will, in the long run, hurt more. His son deserves a father who is true to himself, who he can look up to as a role model, and his wife deserves someone who will look at her like she’s the only person who matters in the world. They need that, and he needs to give it to them. 

“I have to go make a phone call.” 

“Dude it’s like 3am, make it in the morning. Or better yet, go talk to her in person. You wanna call your girl right? I don’t think this is a conversation you want to have over the phone.”

Dean’s right. And he still has questions for Castiel anyways. 

“What’s heaven like? Or, I guess humans probably aren’t allowed to know that are we.”

Castiel gives him a small smile. “I could tell you what Dean’s heaven is like, or Sam’s. I could tell you what Shakespeare’s heaven is like, or Mother Teresa’s. But I don’t know what yours will be like because it’s different for everyone.”

“It’s based on your best memories, so you gotta make sure you have some really good ones,” And Cole isn’t looking at Dean’s face but he can hear the teasing leer in his voice and Cole chuckles softly at it. 

“So you’ve been to heaven too Dean?”

“Yeah, and purgatory, gotta collect the whole set right? Heaven’s had some major  _major_  issues in the past, but the current people in charge seem like good enough people, and trust me of the three options it’s definitely the one you wanna pick for your afterlife vacation destination.”

“There’s just so much I still don’t know isn’t there?”

“Yeah. It’s been an…interesting decade, to say the least.” 

That even makes Castiel laugh a little. “That is in fact the vaguest way you could phrase it, I think.” They share a look that Cole cannot begin to understand. 

“Hey, um, Castiel? Can I ask you one more thing?” 

“Yes of course.”

“What’s God like?” 

Castiel pauses for a very long time, choosing his words carefully. “He is first and foremost a father, of me and my brothers and sisters, of the world, of humanity. I cannot presume to know His mind, but I choose to believe that He has always acted in the best interests of His children, even though we did not always understand His will. I think allowing us to be able to find our own way in the world, like Lucifer and Gadreel were once punished for, like I was once punished for, I think He wanted to grant us that freedom and leaving heaven was the way He chose to do it. This is what I think fathers have to do sometimes. I think it is a decision you may soon have to face regarding your own son, but I think the children must one day learn to grow independently of the father, and I think my father knew this. But I do not think He ever stopped caring. Humankind was created in His image, with His capacity to love and forgive. If you still truly worry about the state of your soul, then devote your life to protecting and loving those you care about, and seek to punish only those who would harm them.” 

Cole lifts the corner of his mouth a bit. “So none of that ‘pray for those who persecute you’ stuff, huh?”

“I believe it is possible to be both compassionate and unyielding. Understanding a creature’s reason for killing does not mean you have to allow your friends to die at its hands.”

Dean speaks up. “Hey Cas, you never told me all that God stuff. You really thinks he gives a crap?”

“I never said it because it took me some time to decide what I myself felt, especially just after the apocalypse which now I freely admit was not my finest hour. I do not think it benefits me to be angry at Him, any more than it benefits you to be angry at your own father. I could, I have reason, but it doesn’t make me feel better about never finding Him. I know He is still out there somewhere, and just as it was during the apocalypse, I have to believe that were the situation to once again become dire enough, He would step in. I was brought back twice, that wasn’t meaningless. And if I am wrong,” he gives Dean a small sad smile, “well, I’ve spent enough time around humans to learn to believe my own lies.”

Cole sort of wants to hug an angel. But at least now he gets why Dean didn’t want to tell him about God, because apparently God has gone into early retirement. Cole thinks he should be more freaked out, but apparently having every single other illusion he’d held about the world shattered over the last twelve-odd months maxed his brain out, because it just seems like one more fact to nod at and take in.

“I should go Dean, you need to sleep sometime before dawn.”

On cue, Dean yawns. “Yeah alright, go talk to some bees or something.”

Castiel’s eyes narrow, and Dean just grins back at some private joke Cole is too tired to ask about. It’s been a long day. 

“Call me if you ever manage to find out anything about removing the,” Dean gestures to the air, “the you know.” 

“Of course. Goodnight Dean, and Cole.” 

Cole gives a little wave and then Castiel is gone. 

Dean kisses Cole's hair again, before standing up and stripping down to his boxers, tossing the clothes in the relative direction of his bag. Either he doesn’t care that Cole is staring or he likes the attention. 

He grins when he turns around though, and sees Cole’s mouth hanging open a little. 

“I think we might both be a little too tired for actual fucking, but that doesn’t take making out with a possible side of heavy petting off the table.” 

“Yeah, that. I could be down for that. Anyways I think I might want to take everything a bit slower. No offense to your angel buddy but an hour of having the rug pulled out from under you still makes the last 20 plus years difficult to just throw away.”

“I hear you. I was 30 before I found out angels were real, and I’d just done a 40 year stint in the pit so I was a bit skeptical. Actually when me and Cas first met I shot him about a dozen times and buried a knife in his chest, didn’t phase him one bit. And see this?” Dean points to a scar on his shoulder in exactly the shape of a hand print, “this is from when he pulled me out of hell. My point being that Cas is good people, but I can understand why you would wanna think about everything some more first.”

Cole thinks that someone really should write the book of the story of Dean Winchester. They’d have to market it as fiction but it would probably sell a hundred thousand copies.

Dean about busts a gut laughing when Cole tells him this. “Oh babe, remind me, in the morning, to tell you why that’s funny. But it’s late and I really wanna kiss you again, if you’ll let me.” 

“Yeah, just, hang on a second.”

He darts into the bathroom to brush his teeth and comes back out in his tank top and boxers. He thought the military had taken all the shyness out of him, but apparently it’s different with a lover, because he feels suddenly reluctant to cross over to the bed where Dean is watching him from under the covers. He makes himself do it though, and the moment Dean finally has Cole in his arms makes everything in the last year, the last 26 years if he’s being honest, worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
